Confinement In Kate Chopin's The Yellow Wallpaper

Decent Essays
“The Yellow Wallpaper” is a story that was written in the Victorian Era, the story was not published, but should it should have. I think it should have been published because it explains what could happen to women with confinement, how they were treated, and how they felt. In the story, the women says,”John does not know how much I really suffer. He knows there is no reason to suffer, and that satisfies him.” This explains that even she feels that the treatment does not work and she is being forced to believe that it will when in reality it will not. Women felt that the treatment did not work at all. They felt that they were going insane. Confinement can make someone go crazy and begin to hallucinate.Women were treated unequal at the time,

Related Documents

  • Improved Essays

    Before the Age of Reform, and Dorothea Dix, mentally ill were placed in prisons with other convicts. Because of their differences they were neglected, abused, and even tortured. Thankfully due to Dix’s efforts the mentally ill were removed from the prisons and placed into their own separate state hospitals. Much like the mentally ill, there was a time when women prisoners were forced to endure prison like with both male inmates and male guards. This caused women prisoners to be subject to an ultimate amount of violence and sexual assault, until they were finally removed and put into their own prison with other male…

    • 1175 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    “A Raisin in the Sun” by Lorraine Hansberry (376), “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman (1034), and “My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun” by William Shakespeare (529), seem to treat women as second class citizens. Even though they are all from different eras they all three still do not speak of women in high regards. In fact, the Feminist movement would have a field day with all three. One may be a poem but it really speaks volumes of how the narrator felt about his mistress.…

    • 716 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The prominent theme in “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte P. Stetson, illustrates that women’s voices are not heard in society. The protagonist, Jane, begins by describing herself as a person with depression. She attempts to explain to her husband about her mental illness and is told she does not have anything wrong with her. John’s plan was to “cure” her depression by locking her in a room with barred windows, but it only made her illness worse as time went by. “You see he does not believe I am sick!…

    • 864 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    In The Jungle by Upton Sinclair, the main character is Jurgis Rudkus. He is portrayed as a strong, young man looking for work. Jurgis’s main goal is to equip for his wife and family, to give them the best in life. Jurgis’s wife Ona is personified as feeble and young perhaps in her teenage years such as fourteen to sixteen when she marries Jurgis. Jurgis promises Ona, “Leave it to me; leave it to me.…

    • 1466 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    In The Yellow Wallpaper the main character is placed in a house to make her feel free, but end up doing the opposite. In The Story of an Hour the main character had learned of her husband's death, but instead of feeling sad she is glad since without her husband she is free. Women in the Victorian Era are treated not the same, and those who are treated badly the thrive for freedom, same as these stories. In The Yellow Wallpaper, the narrator believes she is ill and her physician husband prescribes fresh air and light.…

    • 735 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The connection of isolation and madness of women in American literature. Women were never treated equally as men. As a result of suffrage organizations actions women got voting right in 1920. But the social expectations, gender norms, loneliness, and patriarchal type of family threatened the mental health of many women in those days. The isolation of women at that time as a dedication to the ideals of True Womanhood very often led women to madness.…

    • 840 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Katie Freudensprung ENG 1123 3 December 2017 Analysis Paper The Yellow Wallpaper In Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper,” the narrator is trapped in a battle of post pardon depression, while also being subject to the oppression of being a woman in the 19th century. The narrator is not only struggling to recover from the depression that she gained from the birth of her child, but she feels trapped to do so with all the rules on how she is supposed to feel and supposed to act. While trying to recover, the narrator slowly loses all parts of her mind due to society’s implement of the rest cure.…

    • 1212 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    This is shown by the actions and characteristics of John to his wife. John ignores her requests and doesn’t care of her well being. Since John is referred to a physician her should have taken better care of his wife and realized that solitary confinement was not the cure. John should have ignored being a physician and focused on being a supportive husband to his wife. This story helped explain how the gender inequality impacted women and how they felt inferior.…

    • 1009 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Superior Essays

    The story “The Yellow Wallpaper” takes place in the 19th century when there were very strict expectations and sexist views on women. They were expected to obey their husbands and were expected to be the perfect housewife. They were not respected or listened to at this period of time, they were viewed as less than men. The narrator in this story starts off with a small nervous disorder, which eventually progresses into something more serious. The husband is also her physician and in charge of many aspects of her life.…

    • 1253 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Within Helena Turners picture The Bird Cage we can see a woman holding a bird cage in front of an open door. Here the bird is trapped within a cage, which is more of a physical trap. This can also go on to represent the fact that women within pieces of literature in the 19th century were portrayed as having feelings of being restrained within their personal and social lives. The fact that the woman that is holding onto the cage is also standing in front of an open door which is showing her desire for freedom. This picture in itself captures a lot of what women’s literature was trying to characterize about their individual lives during the 19th century.…

    • 797 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Research Topic The Yellow wallpaper is a short story that was written by Charlotte Perkins Gilman. The short story engages in stereotypes of women in society. The fact that Gilman introduces a woman in the story and how she goes crazy because the role she is able to play in the society is limited, and also the ability for her to express herself creatively is constricted, simply points out how Gillman is making a Feminist statement by critiquing society’s view of women in general and the limitation society places on women.…

    • 835 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The story “The Story of an Hour” by Kate Chopin, opens a window into the life of a woman, Mrs. Mallard who suffers from a heart disease and receives news that her husband has died. According to the story, she reacted differently than other people would’ve done, but that is where irony is presented. She decided to isolate herself and during her isolation she realized how free and joyful she was feeling, but the real feelings in her heart were loneliness ,emptiness, and fear because of the loss. Mrs. Mallard did not die of joy, she died because she was full of fear,confusion, and loneliness. Chopin decides to put this dramatic scene of Mrs. Mallard in a room of her house, where the couple spent plenty time together.…

    • 1059 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Written in 1892 by Charlotte Perkins Gillman, “The Yellow Wall-paper” is an important piece in the naturalist movement, illustrating the difficulty of being a mentally ill woman in the late 19th and early 20th century. The novella portrays a young woman suffering from postpartum depression who is slowly loosing her sanity. As was custom at the time, the narrator was confined to a room to rest and essentially wait out her depression. Even though this method was highly ineffective, the women it was being used on had no say in the matter because they were deemed mentally ill. This piece was written to illustrate how detrimental this form of treatment was to those who had to suffer through it.…

    • 1239 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The Yellow Wallpaper Synthesis Paper Introduction Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s short novel, The Yellow Wallpaper is one of the literacies shows the feminist in nineteenth century. It contains woman’s depression and neurasthenia as a psychological illness and a patriarchal man and his attitude to his wife in 10-pages short story. The protagonist Jane and her husband move to a mansion and stay there for a while. Jane is suffering from a psychological illness, and her husband John advises her a rest cure other than practical treatments. However, there are some parts show John loves and cares about Jane, but he does not listen to her.…

    • 1359 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper” is a commentary on the empowerment of women. Beaten down by a society that is ruled by men, the narrator decides that she has had enough and takes matters into her own hands. During the time the story was written, woman struggled to find a sense of individuality. They spent their lives being suppressed and could do little about it. The narrator challenges this suppression and evolves into a woman who will not be dominated by men.…

    • 967 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Superior Essays